House of Judah wrote:Considering that Admin Confirmation votes rarely draw a majority of eligible voters in the first place, and has given to disastrous results at times, particularly in the case of Zoc, I'm super not inclined to afford corrupt and incompetent admins protection of super majority requirement or even a simple majority of all voters. Secondly, every single charge is true to the letter which is amply demonstrable to the Senate community.

If it's amply demonstrable to the entire Senate community, and not just the Discord clique, I suspect there will be no objection to following the normal procedure for removing someone from an office for malfeasance of duties, a 2/3rds vote. Given that it takes 90% to expel a member from the Senate in general, that's more than reasonable.

The Sarian wrote:> Has been a member of #schemeing alongside Merizoc and everyone else who is defending her since Calaverde in what was once widely called *the cabal* back when it used to have members people could tolerate

The Sarian wrote:> Has been a member of #schemeing alongside Merizoc and everyone else who is defending her since Calaverde in what was once widely called *the cabal* back when it used to have members people could tolerate

The Sarian: Your oblique attempt to bypass the rules against discussing this sort of thing, and therefor implying your accusations, only makes it far more evident as to who and what you are discussing. *** 3-day ban for harassment. ***

If you have ANY reason to believe a player is a threat to NationStates.net or its users, file a Getting Help Request. Do not levy accusations - explicit or oblique. Getting Help Requests are the only appropriate venue. Period.

Once the paperwork is done, this thread will be unlocked.

Last edited by Kyrusia on Tue Feb 20, 2018 8:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This Senate is fraying at its edges, but I, as well as the remainder of the admin team, will try our hardest to keep this afloat. We have a community here, and I am sure that we would prefer having the roleplay exist instead of it not existing -- let's not snipe or be petty or rude, the admin team is discussing everything that's going on right now.

Last edited by Electrum on Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Before I get to the serious stuff, we'll be kicking off the elections. You'll be able to create campaign threads for your campaigns and the election thread should be up shortly thereafter. Now, some of you are aware of a proposal to have a secret ballot for elections, including for the Tribunals. This will not happen, given that all elections we have had in the past have been open and transparent, which we believe is important to have.

On a more serious note, as many of you know, there's a petition, regarding the impeachment of the Admin, Merizoc. Given the toxicity of the situation and after consulting with members of this community, it has been decided by me to execute the vote as a secret one, citing your concerns regarding privacy and backlash for your views on this controversial issue.

The question will be as follows: Should Merizoc be impeached and removed from his role as Administrator of the NSG Senate?

Message Omericoa and vote either Aye, Nay, or Abstain. Only those three answers will be accepted. This will last for two days and be decided by a simple majority, at which, I will post the results.

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Treating with contempt requests to explain his actions as a Senate Administrator

I can understand how some may see it this way, but it is important to remember that the admins address issues as a team. I don't want to give official responses on behalf of the admin team without first consulting the others—and I'm sure many of you would agree that would be irresponsible. If I seem curt it's because I've already given you the response of "the admins will address it soon". What is important to me is that we maintain consistency.

Abusing his power as an #NSG_Senate IRC Channel Operator to harass and abuse members of the Senate community,

This is simply a complete falsehood.

Indiscriminately unbanning users blocked from the #NSG_Senate IRC, many of which had been banned as a result of gross violations of IRC rules,

Sarian complained he was banned, that shouldn't have happened, so I went in and cleared the *extensive* banlist, which was 99% just words that people banned as a joke. NWO was rebanned a few minutes after. This is a completely contrived grievance.

Utilizing his powers as a Senate Administrator implusively and unilaterally without due consideration by his peers,

Exceeding his authority and perogerative as one of the users of the NSG Senate Administrators account in order to prevent a community action to remove a clear and present danger to the participants of the Senate RP in accordance with protocols and procedures established by the precedent of the removal from the Senate RP of Dragomere

As Zurk makes clear here, this is a complete falsehood. I don't act unilaterally on big decisions, certainly not on warning players, and never have. So why does Judah feel the need to lie here?

Attempting to subvert IC election systems by moving voting off site and making vote validation impossible,

I'm barely sure what this refers to, someone brought the idea of a secret ballot up, I said that on a personal level I liked it, and as a whole, we (the admin team) decided to not go ahead with it. The signatories of this consider a personal opinion an unacceptable thing for an admin to hold?

And having demonstrated an apathy towards the Senate RP and his responsibilities as a Senate Administrator which serves only to detract from the Senate RP

I'd say I've been fairly involved as a player, and certainly active as an admin, though of course that's subjective.

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I had expected this to result in a brief lived separate thread for discussion and voting, much like how we handle admin confirmations, instead of the peculiar way it is right now. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Instead I will do my best to rebut this defence as best I can from my phone which is the limit of my ability to access the site at the moment since I am at work.

To start, at multiple junctures we have seen the admin team fail to provide a suitable explanation of their actions, despite multiple and adamant insistence from members of the community, and when admins are approached independently, their responses have varied from dismissive to lashes out. While the entire admin team (excepting Arch who is too new to have encountered this problem) has been guilty of this, I have not found their behavior to quite reach the point of systemic abuses as I have with Merizoc.

Merizoc had, in fact, on multiple occasions severely abused the powers he was granted in the IRC, muting, kicking, or banning it other users not for any form of misconduct, but because they were on the opposing side of an argument or just because he wanted to screw with them. To the contrary, instead of attempting to maintain a sense of order or decorum on the IRC, he has engaged in the worst of this behavior, including incidences I am unsure I can fully reference here without being accused and warned for harassment.

The majority of bans that were cleared on the IRC were IP bans enacted to prevent people from dodging around a band with a different handle and/or login. The rebanning of NWO required the intervention of Soviet Canuckistan. The incident was also the final straw for Merizoc to be stripped of operator powers on the IRC.

The charge of undue action may require sought modification, in so far as Merizoc did consult with Zurk, however he still took action without having received input from the entire admin team, which is made abundantly clear in Zurk's explaining post, nor does it excuse suppressing community action to remove a person for the community according to established precedent. To be clear, while Zurk is also guilty here of abuses, I do not currently believe his pattern of behavior reaches a threshold necessary for removal.

In a conversation with Ainin on the IRC, Merizoc made clear his intention to move voting off site in order to establish secret ballots, and a willingness to do so over the objections and will of the community.

Overall, this pattern of behavior has demonstrated a clear apathy towards the Senate community, the RP, and the standards an admin should hold themselves to.

Last edited by House of Judah on Wed Feb 21, 2018 9:29 am, edited 2 times in total.

House of Judah wrote:I had expected this to result in a brief lived separate thread for discussion and voting, much like how we handle admin confirmations, instead of the peculiar way it is right now. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Instead I will do my best to rebut this defence as best I can from my phone which is the limit of my ability to access the site at the moment since I am at work.

To start, at multiple junctures we have seen the admin team fail to provide a suitable explanation of their actions, despite multiple and adamant insistence from members of the community, and when admins are approached independently, their responses have varied from dismissive to lashes out. While the entire admin team (excepting Arch who is too new to have encountered this problem) has been guilty of this, I have not found their behavior to quite reach the point of systemic abuses as I have with Merizoc.

Merizoc had, in fact, on multiple occasions severely abused the powers he was granted in the IRC, muting, kicking, or banning it other users not for any form of misconduct, but because they were on the opposing side of an argument or just because he wanted to screw with them. To the contrary, instead of attempting to maintain a sense of order or decorum on the IRC, he has engaged in the worst of this behavior, including incidences I am unsure I can fully reference here without being accused and warned for harassment.

The majority of bans that were cleared on the IRC were IP bans enacted to prevent people from dodging around a band with a different handle and/or login. The rebanning of NWO required the intervention of Soviet Canuckistan. The incident was also the final straw for Merizoc to be stripped of operator powers on the IRC.

The charge of undue action may require sought modification, in so far as Merizoc did consult with Zurk, however he still took action without having received input from the entire admin team, which is made abundantly clear in Zurk's explaining post, nor does it excuse suppressing community action to remove a person for the community according to established precedent. To be clear, while Zurk is also guilty here of abuses, I do not currently believe his pattern of behavior reaches a threshold necessary for removal.

In a conversation with Ainin on the IRC, Merizoc made clear his intention to move voting off site in order to establish secret ballots, and a willingness to do so over the objections and will of the community.

Overall, this pattern of behavior has demonstrated a clear apathy towards the Senate community, the RP, and the standards an admin should hold themselves to.

So, we're voting on removal of an NSSG Admin based on your version of things done and said in conversations in an internet chat most players particularly new players never saw or participated in but should take your word about because?

How exactly does behavior in an offsite venue not even advertised as part of the NSSG game on *this* website affect gameplay on *this* website? Take away all the he said she said offsite grievances that have no applicability to *this* game on *this* website where all actions are transparent, and you're not presenting any compelling evidence, to me at least, or admissible evidence to me at all, why we're even voting at all. I'm not in your sewing circle. Don't want to be in your sewing circle. The game can and does get played without your sewing circle.

Openly voting nay on removing Merizoc, because there is no compelling case for doing so. What has he done that affects my gameplay *here* negatively?

Be sure to sign up for RPed and scored elections in this thread. They were highly popular in Fernão, and they’re being brought back with an improved system for Galatea.

On Merizoc, this is setting the bar much too low to remove an Admin. You wouldn’t remove a judge because you dislike their philosophy or their decisions. The same logic follows here.

Lastly, I urge the Admins to reconsider secret ballots for elections. They are completely verifiable — have a thread where people confirm they have voted — and, without them, there is absolutely zero strategy for voting on the Tribunes.

Nulla Bellum wrote:So, we're voting on removal of an NSSG Admin based on your version of things done and said in conversations in an internet chat most players particularly new players never saw or participated in but should take your word about because?

How exactly does behavior in an offsite venue not even advertised as part of the NSSG game on *this* website affect gameplay on *this* website? Take away all the he said she said offsite grievances that have no applicability to *this* game on *this* website where all actions are transparent, and you're not presenting any compelling evidence, to me at least, or admissible evidence to me at all, why we're even voting at all. I'm not in your sewing circle. Don't want to be in your sewing circle. The game can and does get played without your sewing circle.

Openly voting nay on removing Merizoc, because there is no compelling case for doing so. What has he done that affects my gameplay *here* negatively?

No, we're voting as a result of issues that are dividing the NSG Senate community. The OOC tension and contentiousness you see here have not previously been a feature of the Senate. This is affecting our gameplay negatively. We need to take action to address it now and to reclaim the Senate so it can return to its full, proper, and enjoyable form. Otherwise, we risk the end of Galatea just as it gets started.

We risk becoming unattractive for new players such as yourself. We run the risk of losing existing members. We end up creating a toxic environment.

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Nulla Bellum wrote:So, we're voting on removal of an NSSG Admin based on your version of things done and said in conversations in an internet chat most players particularly new players never saw or participated in but should take your word about because?

How exactly does behavior in an offsite venue not even advertised as part of the NSSG game on *this* website affect gameplay on *this* website? Take away all the he said she said offsite grievances that have no applicability to *this* game on *this* website where all actions are transparent, and you're not presenting any compelling evidence, to me at least, or admissible evidence to me at all, why we're even voting at all. I'm not in your sewing circle. Don't want to be in your sewing circle. The game can and does get played without your sewing circle.

Openly voting nay on removing Merizoc, because there is no compelling case for doing so. What has he done that affects my gameplay *here* negatively?

No, we're voting as a result of issues that are dividing the NSG Senate community. The OOC tension and contentiousness you see here have not previously been a feature of the Senate. This is affecting our gameplay negatively. We need to take action to address it now and to reclaim the Senate so it can return to its full, proper, and enjoyable form. Otherwise, we risk the end of Galatea just as it gets started.

We risk becoming unattractive for new players such as yourself. We run the risk of losing existing members. We end up creating a toxic environment.

I agree, but the only toxicity I see is the meta-gaming aspect being promoted by some as equivalent to and as relevant as the gaming aspect which we can all see by following the various senate threads here on Forum 7. Whatever is happening on Chaturbate or whatever has dip to do with the machinations and activity we can see openly here. I'm a tabletop old school pencil and paper and dice RPer. I'm only interested in playing my character with information available to my character, be it general knowledge of the setting or role-played activity my character participated in or has access to discovering, also via roleplay. My character is currently in a coma (but will awaken soon) and while RPing a coma is easy (lol) I am basing the medical conditions on actual TBI prognoses and my own RL experiences with one. I'm not trying to threadjack the discussion over this vote to throw out an admin, but it's all hearsay and possibly libel and absolutely nothing to do with whats been seen and done WITH GALATEA GAMEPLAY ON FORUM 7, which is all I care about. If players don't like how this game is being administrated or who is administrating it, nobody is keeping them from building their own treehouse in a different forest. and nothing would stop me from playing in that game ALSO. Nobody said stop playing the Galatea game while we debate the wingspans of anchovies.

Eibenland wrote:No, we're voting as a result of issues that are dividing the NSG Senate community. The OOC tension and contentiousness you see here have not previously been a feature of the Senate. This is affecting our gameplay negatively. We need to take action to address it now and to reclaim the Senate so it can return to its full, proper, and enjoyable form. Otherwise, we risk the end of Galatea just as it gets started.

We risk becoming unattractive for new players such as yourself. We run the risk of losing existing members. We end up creating a toxic environment.

I agree, but the only toxicity I see is the meta-gaming aspect being promoted by some as equivalent to and as relevant as the gaming aspect which we can all see by following the various senate threads here on Forum 7. Whatever is happening on Chaturbate or whatever has dip to do with the machinations and activity we can see openly here. I'm a tabletop old school pencil and paper and dice RPer. I'm only interested in playing my character with information available to my character, be it general knowledge of the setting or role-played activity my character participated in or has access to discovering, also via roleplay. My character is currently in a coma (but will awaken soon) and while RPing a coma is easy (lol) I am basing the medical conditions on actual TBI prognoses and my own RL experiences with one. I'm not trying to threadjack the discussion over this vote to throw out an admin, but it's all hearsay and possibly libel and absolutely nothing to do with whats been seen and done WITH GALATEA GAMEPLAY ON FORUM 7, which is all I care about. If players don't like how this game is being administrated or who is administrating it, nobody is keeping them from building their own treehouse in a different forest. and nothing would stop me from playing in that game ALSO.

Mate, I hope you fucking realize that the playerbase are the ones who vote the admins into position, and we are also the ones who hold the right to remove them from said office if needed.

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I understand that the vote is a secret vote, but obviously the admins will be seeing the votes. I assume Merizoc won’t be one of those seeing the votes, but I think it should be clearly established that he won’t.

I second this sentiment. Both IRC, in the past, and Discord, currently, have resulted in cliques and direct activity away from the forums, where it belongs. This is an ongoing problem that has seriously hurt the Senate.

MERIZoC wrote:Sarian complained he was banned, that shouldn’t have happened, so I went in and cleared the *extensive* banlist, which was 99% just words that people banned as a joke. NWO was rebanned a few minutes after. This is a completely contrived grievance.

House of Judah wrote:The majority of bans that were cleared on the IRC were IP bans enacted to prevent people from dodging around a band with a different handle and/or login. The rebanning of NWO required the intervention of Soviet Canuckistan. The incident was also the final straw for Merizoc to be stripped of operator powers on the IRC.

For the record, Merizoc is correct here. The vast majority of “bans” on the IRC have always been people jokingly banning things.

Nulla Bellum wrote:So, we’re voting on removal of an NSSG Admin based on your version of things done and said in conversations in an internet chat most players particularly new players never saw or participated in but should take your word about because?

How exactly does behavior in an offsite venue not even advertised as part of the NSSG game on *this* website affect gameplay on *this* website? Take away all the he said she said offsite grievances that have no applicability to *this* game on *this* website where all actions are transparent, and you’re not presenting any compelling evidence, to me at least, or admissible evidence to me at all, why we’re even voting at all. I’m not in your sewing circle. Don’t want to be in your sewing circle. The game can and does get played without your sewing circle.

Openly voting nay on removing Merizoc, because there is no compelling case for doing so. What has he done that affects my gameplay *here* negatively?

I have to also agree with much of this. The formation of, as NB puts it, “sewing circles” is a serious problem in the Senate, and the Discord folks need to realize that the game doesn’t revolve around them and their grudges, often based in miscommunication. This isn’t limited to Discord, we’ve had these problems before with IRC. Whenever one group hijacks the entire RP because of an OOC grudge or obsession, it’s extremely detrimental to the RP and to those players who actually want to participate in the Senate.

One of the largest causes of these problems is a lack of communication, from all sides. I don’t think Merizoc and the other admins have been very good at communicating anything for quite a while. Within the player base, problems are whispered about on Discord or posted about, dripping with toxicity, on the forums, often hijacking events such as the Archism’s admin confirmation for no reason other than to satisfy grudges and cause chaos. Unless grievances are aired and received in a mature, open, and productive way, the Senate has no chance at survival.

Nulla Bellum wrote:I agree, but the only toxicity I see is the meta-gaming aspect being promoted by some as equivalent to and as relevant as the gaming aspect which we can all see by following the various senate threads here on Forum 7. Whatever is happening on Chaturbate or whatever has dip to do with the machinations and activity we can see openly here. I'm a tabletop old school pencil and paper and dice RPer. I'm only interested in playing my character with information available to my character, be it general knowledge of the setting or role-played activity my character participated in or has access to discovering, also via roleplay. My character is currently in a coma (but will awaken soon) and while RPing a coma is easy (lol) I am basing the medical conditions on actual TBI prognoses and my own RL experiences with one. I'm not trying to threadjack the discussion over this vote to throw out an admin, but it's all hearsay and possibly libel and absolutely nothing to do with whats been seen and done WITH GALATEA GAMEPLAY ON FORUM 7, which is all I care about. If players don't like how this game is being administrated or who is administrating it, nobody is keeping them from building their own treehouse in a different forest. and nothing would stop me from playing in that game ALSO.

Mate, I hope you fucking realize that the playerbase are the ones who vote the admins into position, and we are also the ones who hold the right to remove them from said office if needed.

The admins are already voted into position. One just got elected. The need to remove one or any of them isn't obvious or transparent. What has Merizoc done *in context of transparent gameplay on Forum 7 on this website* that should cause me alarm? I'm coming up with nothing and not a goddamned thing. Show me something he has done within the scope of what we can all see, or stop wasting time. No offense.